AstraZeneca to make billion COVID vaccine doses if tests succeed

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AstraZeneca expects to be able to deliver a billion doses of a possible COVID-19 vaccine this year and next if tests are successful, adding on Thursday it should shortly get results of an early stage clinical trial.

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The British drugmaker said it had signed the first agreements to supply at least 400 million doses of the vaccine, which it is developing with Oxford University.

It said it recognized the vaccine might not work but if results from the early stage tests were positive, they would lead to late stage trials in several countries.

Only a handful of the vaccines in development have advanced to human trials, an indicator of safety and efficacy, and the stage at which most fail.

There are currently no approved treatments or vaccines for COVID-19 being tested by pharmaceutical giants across the world, with governments, drugmakers and researchers working on around 100 programs and experts predicting a safe and effective means of preventing the disease could take 12 to 18 months to develop.

AstraZeneca also said in a statement that it had received more than $1 billion from the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority for development, production and delivery of the potential vaccine.

It said the COVID-19 vaccine it was testing would include a planned late-stage clinical trial with 30,000 participants and a paediatric trial, adding that it planned to start supplying the vaccine in Britain in September.